New Orleans is set to see over a billion dollars spent locally in this calendar year by the film and TV industry. The head of the Louisiana Film and Entertainment Association Trey Burvant told WWL’s Ian Hoch this record year is being propelled by a ravenous appetite for new streaming content brought on by the pandemic TV binge.
“So now with this arms race to create as much content as possible in streaming, because we basically went through every single show, even on Netflix, there is so much content being made,” said Burvant. “This kind of on-demand on steroids has created a lot… people are fighting for eyeballs right now.”
Presently there are over 20 active productions in Louisiana, the bulk of them in New Orleans. That includes active filming, film prep, or projects in some state of production.
Burvant credits the local boom in large part to a film tax credit reform that happened a few years before the pandemic. He said that left the Crescent City poised to take advantage of this explosion.
“Every show, every film that is made here is made up with almost 80% of local Louisiana residents,” said Burvant who emphasized these sets are making things, not just providing services. “When I mean make it here, I mean manufacture it. That is what we do here, we manufacture products, we are an assembly line of content and that is kind of the bigger thing that I want people to really, really take to heart when they see those trucks on the street.”
